Rehearsing collective machine teaching for food-saving infrastructures.

A critical city making project exploring collective machine teaching and the algorithmic commoning of rescued food to create commoning-based smart city alternatives. A participatory rehearsal of the food distribution infrastructure took place in the spring of 2024 in Basel, Switzerland, in the framework of the Scaling Material Urban Commons research project. The participatory phase lasted six weeks, including social gatherings, assembly meetings, machine teaching, and two weeks of food deliveries. Participants and the partnering Basel-based food rescue organisation FoodAngels used the Food Distribution Engine, an experimental tool developed by the research team, to enable participants to provide daily information about their kitchens, generate training data via manual data labelling, and train an algorithmic food distribution model.

https://smuc.kitchen/

https://smuc.kitchen/assets/fieldtest-video-2.mp4

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Details

Project artist/ concept/ design/ planning : Viktor Bedö, Ozan Güngör, Yann Martins

Project co-ordination : Viktor Bedö

Interaction design/ programming : George Simms, Mahinya Mkwawa, Kian Hunziker

Project sponsor/ support : Swiss National Science Foundation

Descriptions

Urban situation : Algorithmic food distribution infrastructure connecting food rescue depot with individual kitchens.

Description of showreel : Elements of the collective machine teaching and distribution infrastructure, featuring research questions the project addresses.

Participatory architecture & urban interaction

Community or communities involved : Seven participant volunteers Food Angels Basel

Host organization : FHWN Critical Media Lab Basel

Legal form : Academic research project

Tools developed : Collective Machine Teaching Interface: (https://gitlab.fhnw.ch/smuc)

Mediacredits

Scaling Material Urban Commons

Scaling Material Urban Commons (photo by Chiara Marinai)

Scaling Material Urban Commons (photo by Chiara Marinai)

scaling Material Urban Commons (photo by Chiara Marinai)

Scaling Material Urban Commons

Scaling Material Urban Commons (photo by Chiara Marinai

Scaling Material Urban Commons project (video production: Imagination of Things Studio)